Shadow Gate (55 page)

He retreated, looking flustered.

“What in the hells does that mean?” he muttered to Bai as the others gathered around. “Do they mean to just let us sit here and grow old by this cursed stream
with this cursed grass and sky driving us to cursed madness, eh?”

“Let me try,” said Eridit.

“They turned their backs on you before,” he warned her.

“If I have to die, I'd rather do it quickly than wither away any more days in this cursed prison! I don't even dare have sex for fear it will violate their invisible boundaries. I don't know about you, but this is the longest I've gone without since I celebrated my Youth's Crown and started in on my Lover's Wreath!”

Shai covered his eyes. Bai laughed. Tohon sighed.

“Back me up, Bai?” Eridit asked.

“I'm game.”

Eridit sucked in a deep breath. Shai watched her cross the open ground to stand before the three women who, hearing their steps, turned to face them.

“Greetings of the day, honored ones,” said Eridit, her gestures emphasizing the words. She had a clear voice that carried easily. “We are come peacefully, with honor held in our hearts, having strayed out of our own land in pursuit of certain criminals who had broken our laws. We beg humbly your pardon for our transgression, and we request humbly that you allow us to continue our journey, out of your territory.”

“You must pay,” said the woman standing in the middle. “For food, you must pay. For transgression, you must pay.”

Eridit looked to Bai, and Bai leaned over and whispered. Nodding, Eridit addressed the lendings. “Perhaps we may offer trade goods in exchange as an expression of our goodwill.”

“What in the hells do we have to trade to the likes of them?” muttered Edard.

“Hush,” murmured Tohon as, at the sound of Edard's voice, the lending women again made a show of turning their backs.

After a moment's silence, the three turned back and
displayed empty palms to Eridit and Bai. “You possess nothing worth the weight of transgression. But one of your tales, we'll hear. If it is worthy, then you show yourselves to ride with honor, and you may walk free.”

A tale.

“Sit down,” whispered Ladon. “This could take a while. I've seen her perform.”

The four men sat. The veiled lendings turned their backs, a ring of dark cloth stretched across broad shoulders. Every man carried a bow and quiver slung across his back, and leaned on a spear. A haze spanned the heavens. Clouds piled up in the east, as though a hand were holding them back. Shai shivered, not cold but disturbed by strange vibrations within the earth, and he thought one of the unveiled faces bent its gaze on him, but she was too far away for him to be sure.

Eridit crouched, head bent. As she rose, her posture changed so her body seemed larger not in size but in spirit, as though she was inhabited by others as well as herself.

“My nose is itching. Many whispers have tickled my ears these many nights, but this is the tale that speaks. Listen! To the famous tale, the most famous tale, of the Silk Slippers.”

Shai had heard snatches of song and chant in the streets of Olossi, seen folk punctuate a line of melody with graceful gestures made by their hands or by the bending of elbows or knees. He had not seen a tale fully chanted, complete from beginning to end.

The brigands raged in,

they confronted the peaceful company seated at their dinner,

they demanded that the girl be handed over to them.

And all feared them. All looked away.

Except foolish Jothinin, light-minded Jothinin,

he was the only one who stood up to face them,

he was the only one who said, “No.”

It took her half the day, pausing four times to drink water Bai brought in a bowl. By the end, she was sweating and triumphant, shaking with fatigue and yet standing proud.

“Hu!” said Tohon. “Impressive.”

“I'm in love,” murmured Veras.

“No, I am,” whispered Ladon.

Edard glared. “I don't know why either of you think the likes of her would take a second look at your callow hides, despite your rich clans and good connections.”

Shai had no words. She would never look at a mere tailman, a Kartu lad, nothing-good Shai.

The three unveiled lendings raised bows and each loosed an arrow. The arrows raced high and then, tumbling, were incinerated in gouts of flame.

“Demons!” Tohon leaped to his feet.

Eridit sank exhausted to her knees, Bai squatting beside her. The lendings whistled, and just like that they mounted and cantered away, still whistling. Cursed if their own horses didn't tug at their lines, break loose, and gallop after. Everyone ran in pursuit, even Eridit.

“Gods-rotted savages!” swore Edard when they had straggled back empty-handed, panting and heaving and having lost every horse. “They stole them!”

Eridit hid her tears. The lads kicked up clumps of grass.

“They must be demons, to have such magic,” said Tohon.

“They're not demons,” said Bai. “They're lendings.”

“The tale was payment for the transgression,” said Eridit through her tears. “But they also said they wanted payment for the food we ate.”

“Aui!” Bai shook her head in disgust. “That's why they took the horses!”

“We've got half the day left to get off this cursed grass,” said Edard as he surveyed the heavens. “We'll have to go back to Olossi and get refitted.”

“And lose more days?” said Bai. “Neh. We'll redistribute our goods, and we'll walk. We've come too far to go back now.”

“The hells you say!” He puffed up in that way men have when they are trying to intimidate others. He was a fit man, one of Kotaru's ordinands, physically imposing.

“The hells I do,” she said so calmly that he stepped back. “Over long distances, we don't make that much better time with the horses, and they'll attract attention. I say, we cut along through the grass at the edge of the Lend, making straight for Horn. We'll make decent time, and we've been left with our own provisions, at least. What do you say?”

But she wasn't asking Edard, although he had been named commander of the expedition. Tohon nodded, and therefore, it was decided.

Life wasn't too hard in the Qin compound in Olossi, not for a marriageable girl, anyway.

“I help you, Avisha,” Chaji said with a grin, unhooking the full bucket and swinging it over the lip of the well. He set it down on the paving stones. Water slipped over the side to darken the stone.

“I thank you.” Avisha blushed, flattered by his attention.

“That one, too?” His smile crinkled his very pretty eyes as he nudged a second bucket with a booted foot. “I fill. For a kiss.”

Avisha giggled, but she pressed a hand over her mouth and then, seeing the frown that darkened his face, wished she had not. If she made herself disagreeable, none would want her. Behind, footsteps slapped on the paving stones.

“Hu! Chaji, you don't do it for a price.” Jagi elbowed his comrade aside and slung the empty bucket onto the hook.

Chaji muttered, “Like saying you want no meat when you eat it up with your eyes.”

Avisha felt her ears go hot, but Jagi pretended not to hear, muscular shoulders working as he turned the crank. The bucket splashed into the deep reservoir below, and he hauled it back up while Avisha kept her head down, Beneath half-lowered lashes she surveyed the two men—Chaji with his pretty eyes and pretty grin and Jagi with his broad and rather homely face—her own smile fighting against a fear that it would be unseemly to show how much she enjoyed being the center of their attention.

“I carry them for you,” Jagi said. “To the kitchens?”

“That's right. Thank you.”

She followed him as he headed for the open gate. The well and the cisterns stood in a courtyard beyond the two gardens, at the highest point in the compound. A complicated system of troughs and pipes brought water from two large cisterns to the pool, the plantings, and the privies, an astounding display of wealth that Avisha still marveled at after weeks living in Olossi. This compound by itself was bigger than the temple complex in her village.

“So, you will marry
me,
yes?” Chaji paced alongside, hand tapping the ranks of damp cloth in all their bright colors hung on lines to dry. By the smaller cistern, two women pounded wet clothes on stones, pausing to eye Chaji. “You are the prettiest of the girls. You are young. You work hard. The mistress favors you.”

Ahead, Jagi grunted under his breath, but he kept walking through the gate into the passage that separated the open-to-the-air kitchen from the living quarters. He turned left, under the kitchen's tiled roof, where hirelings standing at long tables plucked chickens and chopped up haricots, onions, and apricots. In the kitchen yard, steam
rose from pots of rice and fragrant barsh set over hearths. Ginger tea was brewing.

Avisha stepped up into the shade of the porch and slipped off her straw sandals, while Chaji bobbed on his toes on the walk.

“Yes?” he asked, not coming after her. “That is your answer? Yes?”

Looking back over her shoulder at him with just, she hoped, the right amount of promise, she pushed through the curtained entrance and promptly tripped over the handle of a broom. She sprawled, hitting her chin on the plank floor. Sitting up, she saw Sheyshi lazily pulling the broom straight.

“You bitch! You did that on purpose!”

The other girl stared at her with dull, angry, stupid cow eyes. A heap of swept dirt was piled by her dainty feet.

Avisha grabbed for the broom. “I'll show you!”

Sheyshi yanked the broom away and backed behind the ranks of rolled-up bedding.

“Merciful God, gift me patience!” Priya walked into the room. Under her quelling gaze, the two girls looked away from each other. “What happened here?”

“Nothing, verea,” said Avisha as she got to her feet. Although Priya was a slave and therefore not actually deserving of the respectful form of address, Avisha saw perfectly well how the mistress trusted her. “I just tripped. The water buckets went to the kitchen. I can get more.”

Priya examined first her, then Sheyshi. “Sheyshi, finish sweeping, then fold the mattresses properly and hang out the bedding. I'll have no bugs. Avisha, come with me.”

Rubbing her throbbing chin, Avisha followed Priya into the inner chambers, each one ornamented with painted scrolls hanging on the walls and a few well-chosen pieces of polished black-lacquer furniture that had, as it happened, belonged to the previous owners.
They had been rich enough to own five chairs, and the mistress sat in a padded chair now as she regarded a pair of merchants seated in visitor's chairs. Mai received favored business associates in the chamber known as six-seasons-of-the-crane because of the six-paneled screen set against one wall.

Avisha waited beside the entrance as the mistress completed her business. She never got tired of studying the beautifully painted screen, with cranes dancing in a field of early-blooming pink-heart on one panel, or a bachelor flock staging for their journey to the drowsy swamps of Mar beneath white-petaled wish-vines symbolic of hopes of finding a good mate on another.

“Meanwhile, ver,” Mai was saying, “it has come to my attention that your factor has changed the unit of measurement from a unit by log to one of standing timber.”

The man she addressed was considerably older, plump, with a primly pursed mouth. He glanced toward Chief Tuvi, who stood behind Mai's chair. “It's the usual standard of sale, verea.”

Mai had a pleasing, cheerful voice, quite innocent of malice. “Yet the original contract was made by unit of log. I can't help but wonder if standing timber may produce less log depending on defects within the trees themselves, which may not be detected until they are split and sawed for building. Really, ver, you have given us such fine quality and quantity of wood, that I would hate to have to ask my factor to begin negotiations with another house.” She smiled. Like the masterly painting of cranes on the screen, you could not help but admire beauty.

“Eh, ah,” said the merchant, stumbling over his tongue. Avisha was sure he had never had such a cold threat delivered so prettily. “I am sure my factor made a mistake, verea. I'll speak to her at once.”

His glance toward the clerk would have scalded skin. And, indeed, Avisha could smell, from the kitchens, that the plucked chickens had been dumped into a pot of boiling water.

“You may speak to my factor in the office on your way out,” said Mai kindly.

“That would be the young man, who once was Master Feden's factor?”

“He serves our house. Was there something you wanted to say, ver?”

“Neh, neh. We'll be on our way.”

They sketched the formal farewells.

“I'm hungry,” said Mai once they were gone. “I'll take cake and tea in the pavilion, and interview more women.”

“Perhaps you should rest, Mistress,” said Priya.

“I'm not tired. Just so hungry! I feel I ought to have some marriages arranged now that the settlement is rising in the Barrens.” As she rose, she turned a warm gaze on Avisha. “What about you, Vish?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Avisha answered as her gaze skipped to the curtained entrance where Keshad might, if he left the office to consult the mistress, walk in at any moment. But Mai beckoned, so she followed her into the large garden where they sat on benches beneath the repainted pavilion and laughed and chattered as they ate bean curd buns so sweet Avisha could not finish even one while Mai devoured two without apparently noticing that she had done so.

A pair of girls watched over a dozen small children, the offspring of women Mai had hired to work in the compound. Their babble lightened an otherwise cloudy day as they, Zianna among them, splashed in the long pools or played throwing-sticks on the stones. Chief Tuvi stood on the porch that ran the width of the garden. Mostly he scanned the garden, the walls, Mai, her attendants, but at intervals he paused to watch the children's play with a smile.